Valhallan Infantry: Company Command

Since Command elements are only 5-man squads, I was able to  finish them off this weekend. This will be the HQ of my army, and while he doesn't bring a lot of shooty-death-kill or the like compared to, say, a Tyranid Hive Tyrant or a Space Marine Chapter Master, the Commander does give a few benefits to other units.

There is no such thing as a Valhallan Commander figure, or better yet, a Command Sprue, so a lot of improvising is called for.  The Commander (I'm not sure what rank to give him yet, but I am leaning towards Marshall) is a converted Sergeant, so you will be seeing someone very similar in charge of "D" Squad later on.  Once again, the hand-flamer is swapped out for a far more useful (if prone to overheating) plasma pistol. 

You don't see a lot of power axes in Imperial Guard armies, so I thought it would make him distinctive, while the fur cloak further distinguishes him.  I also decided that he and his retinue would not use camouflage coloring, and leave their greatcoats and such white.

Since there is also no such thing as a Valhallan Standard Bearer, further improvisation was required.  Following an example from this blog, I took a trooper running with his lasgun held one-handed and bent his other arm upwards.  Using a pin vise, I drilled out a small hole in the top and bottom of his fist and inserted some brass wire, then drilled corresponding holes in the haft of a bisected standard from a Warhammer Fantasy set, probably Empire soldiers.  I replaced the griffon on top with a double headed eagle, but since it faces front, you'll kind of have to take my word for it.

Unfortunately, it turns out that there is very little correspondence between being able to paint figures and draw freehand, but I am enough of a doodler that I was able to make a passable flag for the Valhallan XXII by penciling in a simple design and then painting over it.  Once that was done, I glued it into place and voila.  All things being equal, I'm pretty happy with it.

I also finished constructing all my foot models this weekend, which is good because it's done now, but it's bad in that it's kind of intimidating looking at all that unpainted primer.  I have pretty much eight weeks now to paint up 7 infantry units; two of them only have 5 models each (H'ray!) but the unit of conscripts is actually 20 strong (Boo!).  I really should get on to the Platoon Command so that I can have a playable army on hand while I finish off the rest, but I have an idea how I might paint the Conscripts quickly, so they are next on the list.